


Earth

by remanth



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Earth, If you read between the lines, Other, Steggy - Freeform, Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3576324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remanth/pseuds/remanth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve isn't dead and he isn't always unconscious when stuck in the ice. He sometimes could think, and remember, and compare this with the Earth he once walked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earth

It was nothing like Earth, this strange flat place he'd found himself. It was cold and dark, with a creeping wetness that snuck under his collar and up over his legs. While he'd tried to move, after consciousness had come back to him, he'd found that stillness and silence was all he could manage. At first, he was able to relax into it and let memories of war and pain slip away. This calm was kinda nice for a man who'd never known calm and safe.

But that feeling hadn't lasted long at all. He wasn't the type of person to enjoy safe and calm and _boring_. He'd been a man of action even when his body hadn't been able to keep up with it. That was why he'd volunteered to be an experiment, a guinea pig when given the option. That choice had brought so much into his life, changed so much. It had brought Peggy into his life. She had been strong and determined and confident, standing up for herself against a man who outweighed and was taller than her. If he was being honest with himself, he probably had started falling in love with her right then. Training had seem a little less onerous when he could spend some nights talking with Peggy. And when she started training him to fight, training him to use his size and speed rather than brute force, he was certain he was falling in love with her.

The transformation had hurt, even more than crashing here into this darkness and cold. But it had given him the ability to protect others, to stop the bullies as he'd always wanted to do. The skills Peggy had taught him translated well to this body, well enough that he was almost never bested when fighting. People didn't expect a man his size to fight the way he did. They expected the brute force, the wading in with no concern for avoiding blows. He'd thanked Peggy from the bottom of his heart the first time he'd come back from a fight for all her training. That training had helped him save his best friend, the one man he couldn't imagine not having around anymore. The man who'd helped him create the team that fought for the side of freedom and good.

Then had come that last day, a train speeding through snowy mountains. It was ironic, really, how both of them had fallen into cold and darkness. He hadn't been able to save Bucky, had watched him fall into the gorge on the side of the speeding train. The earth had been so far below and he knew there was no way Bucky had survived. A pain had ripped through his chest, Bucky's name on his lips. He'd wanted to mourn, to scream and rage at a heartless world that would take his best friend from him. But there was still the mission, still a job to do. He finished it, struggling to push his sorrow and rage to the back of his mind. The rage had broken through, a bit, but that was okay. He could use the rage.

Mourning had come later, sitting in the bombed out ruins of the bar he'd last been in with Bucky. Peggy found him here, talking him through some of the anger and grief. No matter how many glasses of whiskey he'd drunk, he was still completely sober. It was a somewhat unwelcome side effect of Dr. Erskine's experiment. It didn't allow him to deaden the grief and pain. He felt it, felt his heart tearing in two. But there was still the war and still more battles to be fought. Part of the reason Peggy had come to find him was to tell him about another mission. He felt so old, the pain weighing him down and making him move slowly. Bucky wouldn't have wanted him to give up, though. Would have wanted him to keep fighting. So he took a deep breath and pushed himself to his feet. Mourning could wait, again.

Which led to the plane that had become his... not quite grave, not really. He was pretty sure he wasn't dead. Heaven wasn't darkness and cold, complete stillness and loneliness. At least he'd taken care of Red Skull before crashing the plane. That was the focus of his mission, dealing with one of the greatest threats to the Allies. The Tesseract, that strange glowing box that had given Red Skull such unearthly power, had disappeared as well. And he would be lying if he said he regretted losing the damn box over the ocean. It was safer that way. There would always be people looking for any advantage they could get, people who would misuse the power from the box. Even people he somewhat trusted, like Howard Stark, would be tempted to use that power.

That last conversation with Peggy had hurt just as much as losing Bucky still did. They both knew there was no way out, no way to save himself and the cities the bombs he'd found in the plane were destined for. Even though they both knew, they'd made plans to meet. Hope hurt nearly as much as losing the two people he loved most in the world. At least he could give Peggy some comfort, hearing his voice before he was gone. It would pain her, much as hearing Bucky's voice before he'd fallen still pained him. Taking Peggy's voice with him to his death was his comfort. The last thing he'd remembered was white ice and dark water. At least he'd been able to keep Peggy's and Bucky's faces forefront in his mind.

He'd thought he'd died, when the plane crashed into the cold. He didn't remember the plane sinking or filling with water. He didn't remember being flung out of the pilot's chair or shivering as water and ice covered his still form. Mercifully, he'd been unconscious for all of that. It would have been far too terrifying to remember all of that, to feel the water trying to drown him and be unable to do anything about it. He'd woken to this darkness, only his thoughts for company. And now, whoever knew how long it had been since he'd crashed, he wasn't sure he was still sane. The darkness was overwhelming and absolute, the cold enough to have his entire body shivering uncontrollably if he had been able to move. This was his present and likely his future. They weren't looking for him. Peggy, Howard, everyone thought he was dead. Maybe they'd searched for his body but it wasn't likely they'd ever find where the plane had gone. There was far too much water and ice, too many places the plane could be hidden.

He'd settled into a kind of routine in the darkness. Songs ran through his mind, some bright and happy, some melancholy and crooning. He'd told himself every riddle, every joke he could remember. Then came the stories his mother had told him, stories of elves and fairies and leprechauns, legends of the fair folk who sometimes intruded into human affairs. The stories and songs had kept him sane for a while, kept him occupied. But eventually, things faded away, words disappeared, and he found himself struggling to remember the beginnings and the endings. But even what he struggled to cling to faded away, scents and sounds and sights. Until all he was left with was two faces. Two faces he held in his mind as gently as a butterfly and with as much reverence as with a sacred treasure. His world narrowed to those two faces until he forgot even his own name.

Maybe one day, if he was ever freed from this still prison he'd brought upon himself, he would remember everything he had forgotten. He would come back to himself and find purpose again. But until that happened, if it ever happened, he would hold onto and memorize every inch of those two beloved faces. He had a feeling, that if he ever forgot those two faces, Peggy and Bucky, he would forever lose an intrinsic part of himself. That would be worse than being trapped here in the dark and cold. That would be irreversible.


End file.
